Subject:
For moderation - Unethical preservationism: the ivory ban
Date:
Tue, 15 Aug 2000 09:57:57 -0500
From:
Jim Tantillo <[log in to unmask]>
To:
[log in to unmask]
References:
1
Hi everybody,
Not to keep picking on poor Ted . . . but his emails have been among the
most fruitful on the list for generating discussion of late. :-)
Ted wrote in response to Chris Perley:
>My response to several emails on this topic was not about the meaning
of the
>preservation of Nature as such but about the use of anti-environmental
>propaganda terms such as "unethical preservationism." So far, you have
>not made
>a convincing case that there is even such a thing as "unethical"
>preservationism.
I think a convincing case can be made that the ivory ban represents a
pretty clear example of "unethical" preservationism (or protectionism, pick
your favorite term). Prior to the ban, countries such as Botswana, South
Africa, and Zimbabwe had well run elephant management programs in place,
funded largely by the revenues generated from the sale of ivory. Nonprofit
"conservation" organizations such as the African Wildlife Association and
the International Wildlife Coalition found that they could generate BIG
money by generating a big ivory ban bandwagon--in a fundraising scheme (and
there really is no other word for it) that was opposed by ecologists and
scientists from within those very same organizations:
" 'With great sadness I find I must write to tell you that the
plight of Africa's wild elephants is far more desperate than I ever could
have imagined.' So began an 'urgent memorandum' from the African Wildlife
Foundation, a nonprofit conservation organization, to its members and
potential donors on Feb. 10, 1988. Signed by Paul Schindler, the group's
president, the appeal had been prepared by a California company skilled in
direct-mail solicitation. It was designed to shock and raise money. It
succeeded in both. . . .
"The mailing and [subsequent] news conference were the beginning of
one of the most intense conservation campaigns ever. The crusade to ban
ivory was marked by increasing hyperbole and gruesome pictures of mutilated
elephants and by public emotion and politics. It was a campaign in which
conservation organizations paid homage to fund raising and membership.
Groups that endorsed a ban found that there was money in elephants--big
money--and, conversely, that failing to join the crusade might cost them
members."
I'll spare everyone the bulk of the gory details, but the full story is
well told in Raymond Bonner's *At the Hand of Man: Peril and Hope for
Africa's Wildlife* (Knopf, 1993). These quotes are from the shortened
article version that appeared in the NYTimes Magazine, 7 Feb. 1993, "Crying
Wolf Over Elephants: How the International Wildlife Community Got Stampeded
Into Banning Ivory."
In a nutshell, what these organizations did was generalize from the
examples of countries such as Kenya, where problems with elephant poaching
*did* exist, and extrapolated from these cases in isolated contexts to make
broad and *untrue* claims about ALL African elephant management. The
results are still with us today, witness the annual disputes at CITES
meetings that have occurred ever since about partially lifting the ban,
trade in elephant products, etc.
Say what you will about the ethics (animal rights) of "harvesting" animals
for the purpose of economic trade in products made from those animals, but
the fact of the matter is that prior to the ivory ban, the ivory trade
brought in a large amount of money to the countries where the harvest was
well-regulated: again, in places like Botswana, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.
Not only did those revenues fund the conservation programs in those
countries (which benefitted wildlife other than elephants as well), but
those revenues found their way into the hands of the local citizens, who
then had a pecuniary self-interest in watching over what they correctly
perceived to be "their" resource. When the bottom fell out of the ivory
market after the ban was implemented, all this money disappeared. Leaving
African villagers with no money, and African conservation programs with no
money. (One of the results of the latter is that African wildlife
biologists went back to school, many in the states. My department at
Cornell had one of these "refugees" from Zimbabwe in the early 1990s
studying for his Ph.D. Ask me sometime how he felt about the ivory ban.)
The ivory ban hurt elephants, and the ivory ban hurt *people*. This was
all CLEARLY foreseeable before the ban was ever implemented; and again, it
was the scientists and the conservationists within the conservation
organizations that made this argument--not the fund raisers.
Bonner writes:
"No place was the conflict between good conservation and the mammon
of fund raising more bitterly joined than at the World Wildlife Fund in
Washington, also part of the international group known as W.W.F. (Probably
best known by its panda logo, the Swiss-based group has national
organizations in some two dozen countries.) Over a period of more than a
year, in what seemed to be a never-ending 'blood and guts' meetings, the
American group debated the ivory ban. Those individuals whose job it was
to bring in money and members argued that the organization had to
support a
ban or else lose members, perhaps a large number. The conservationists
opposed it. Among them were Rick Weyerhauser, who had studied elephants in
Uganda and Tanzania and was the first program officer for Africa at the
wildlife fund in Washington; Tom McShane, who had been a peace corps
volunteer in Niger and had worked in Malawi, and Michael Wright, a vice
president whose responsibility was the development of conservation policies
that considered the needs of rural people.
"Weyerhauser, McShane, and Wright argued that a ban was bad
conservation and bad for Africans, especially southern Africans. And they
asked how the wildlife fund could endorse a ban and at the same time
support the doctrine of sustainable utilization. This doctrine, which had
been incorporated into the landmark World Conservation Strategy of 1980,
says in essence that the use of resources is permissible--wise and rational
use, but use nonetheless. They argued that it would be inconsistent and
hypocritical for the fund, which had been one of the doctrine's sponsors,
now to endorse a ban on ivory when it wasn't even clear that the species
was endangered."
So I think, Ted, that there are fairly clear examples of "unethical"
preservationism and protectionism out there--if you simply know where to
look. <smile> I'm sure you'll appreciate these last few excerpts from
Bonner's "Crying Wolf" article:
"Though 'conservation' has become a generic term embracing all
efforts to save the environment and resources, initially it meant the
careful and planned use of resources. Opposing the 'conservationists' were
the 'preservationists,' who argued on esthetic and ethical grounds that
nature should be left undisturbed by man. Most conservationists are
probably preservationists at heart: the principal of sustainable
utilization was adopted not out of any philosophical commitment but out of
reality of the third world. . . . The drafters of the World
Conservation Strategy recognized that the poor of the world were going to
use the resources around them to survive, notwithstanding philosophical and
ethical appeals by wealthy Westerners. Therefore, they should be
encouraged to use them in a sustainable way.
"The most valuable resource in Kenya and many African countries is
wildlife. One obvious way to 'utilize' wildlife, to make money from it, is
through tourism. But more directly profitable forms of sustainable
utilization include killing crocodiles, leopards and zebras for their
skins; impala, elands and wildebeests for their meat, and lions and
buffalos for hunting trophies. Sustainable utilization also permits the
killing of elephants for their ivory. In many rural districts of Africa,
the sale of ivory from just 1 or 2 percent of the elephant population could
generate substantial revenues, at least in comparison with the district's
few other revenues, and in many cases would take the districts off the
international dole. And allowing rural people to make money from elephants
gives them a powerful incentive to protect the species from poachers.
"In spite of its longtime commitment to the principle of
sustainable utilization, however, the World Wildlife Fund in Washington was
concerned that the concept was 'not understood by the vast majority' of its
members. 'Most of these members are more traditionally oriented toward
species 'preservation,' and there is little understanding of the
complexities of conservation in Africa in the 1980s,' two senior
conservationists in Washington wrote in a 1988 memo. Failure to endorse a
ban, they added, would have 'a seriously detrimental effect on our
membership.' As Russell Train, the group's chairman, told me [Bonner] in
1991: 'We're trying to bring our members along on utilization, but our
development people, the fund-raisers, are very nervous because there is no
question that the great majority of our membership are animal lovers and
have difficulty making the evolution to a more sophisticated understanding
of conservation.' "
>Ted:
>But I have to accept the fact that this contradictory notion
>does exist in your mind at least.
>
>> C.P: My view on preservation is in
>> contrast with "conservation" and "protection".
>
>Ted:
>Again, you do not provide a rationale as to why anyone would single out
>preservation (or what you call preservation*ism*) for such harsh criticism?
>The terms conservation, protection and restoration are different
aspects of
>activities aimed at the preservation of Nature in whole or in part.
>
>>C.P.
>> Those I have called"preservationists" often have a reserve strategy to
>>nature
>> protection -
>> where "protection" in their eyes only comes from removing humanity. That
>> is, they hold to the premises that "preservation" (in the definition
I use
>> above - reserves and human extractive interaction out) necessarily
(or damn
>> near always) attains protection (false in my view) - and that any
human use
>> necessarily involves environmental harm (also false).
>
>Ted:
>Hey, -- what could possibly be ethically wrong with humanity being
absent from
>major parts of this planet's Nature? That is the way it has been for 3.5
>billion years, and it was good.
[snip]
>C.P.
>> The argument is more sophisticated than that - and in order to have a
>> sophisticated
>> argument, I am afraid (not really) that some distinction needs to be
made to
>> the variant views WITHIN environmentalism.
>
>Ted:
>Sophisticated? Well, there is a huge diversity of views among
>environmentalists,
>as is well reflected by just going over some Directories to Environmental
>Organizations and reading up on the rapidly expanding literature on
>environmental ethics, where one can find many, highly sophisticated analyses,
>views and positions. In Canada, there are over 2000 environmental
>groups/agencies so you are not inventing any new wheel with your
>insistence that
>some "sophisticated?" distinction be made between variant good and bad within
>environmentalism. We are trying to advance the highest ethical cause -- saving
>the living Earth and its evolved Gaian systems.
>Ted
>--
>Ted & Linda Mosquin, Lanark, Ontario K0G 1K0, Canada
>http://www.ecospherics.net (literature on ecocentric/ecospheric ethics)
Jim here again. Bonner concludes:
"In calling for a ban, the fund not only sacrificed its principles but, it
can be argued, abandoned most Africans as well. Zimbabwe, Botswana and a
half dozen other African countries, which together have over half of the
continent's elephants, never wavered in their opposition to a ban. . .
."
Jim T.
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